


Divergent Path

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Violence, season four au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:50:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1412188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An extreme AU - set on the notion that Rick and Daryl didn't meet in the first season of the Walking Dead, but much, much later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Like the series there is adult content, language, graphic violence, and some close brushes with child abuse - like the series, I have no desire to take that last point any further than it's already been explored - wip warning, this story might turn out to be overly long.

___________________

 

TUESDAY

6:15 AM

 

They sit opposite, shrouded in the morning mist, jackets pulled close.  The tension’s thick as molasses when Rick turns the baseball bat over in his hand, fingers running over the pale ash wood; there are imperfections in the grain where a knife has gouged out a roll-call – Kate, he reads – Marcel, Tommy, Juanos; the names are tangled around the handle like a vine, near the thick end of the bat he finds Travis, Clinton, Andy, Rebecca, and half a dozen more besides.

Brenton draws in a breath, lungs shuddering. His face is round, glasses knocked askew.

Rick came across Brenton last evening - exhausted, dazed, half a step away from stumbling into a herd of Walkers and dying grisly - before Rick pulled him to the earth.  Brent fidgets under the scrutiny, knees damp with morning dew, he twists his fingers nervously. 

Once upon a time Rick would have been a whole lotta curious – he would have fired off questions like a pistol – a rat-a-tat-tat – eager for any information.  _How did you survive the epidemic? Who were you before all this? Where did you run? How many people were with you, how many people are with you now?  Where have you been?  Where are you going?  Have you seen any other survivors?  Are you willing to pitch in and help?_   Back when it first started it was a ritual of sorts, people were eager to share their stories, the commonality that touched them all – hushed tones; grief, sometimes anger – but everyone shared their tales of survival.  Nowadays, Rick’s list of questions has dwindled, revised to a mere three.  How many walkers have you killed?  How many people have you killed?  _Why_?

Rick hefts the baseball bat then returns it, handle-first, Maureen on the tip of his fingers.  Rick’s never needed a physical reminder of the people he lost. “You can come,” he says shortly. Brenton nods, relief flooding his face.   When Rick saved his life the previous night, they’d drawn the unwanted attention of Walkers – twelve hours of crouching under cover and the circulation’s gone from both their legs – all that time while they were cut off and trapped, Carl was alone. Impatient, Rick surges to his feet, voice a low threat.  “But you keep up, hear?”

“Yes, sir,” Brenton agrees.  He clasps the baseball bat, using it as a makeshift cane as he staggers upright, shaking off pins and needles.  Brent’s tone lilts with a surge of hope. “Are there a lot of you?”

The names etched in Rick’s own memory are as numerous as Brenton’s bat. 

“Nope,” he answers.  Without fuss.

He saved a life yesterday, the day before that, Rick strangled a man to death in a sunlit bathroom and he needs to get back to Carl. _Right now._

 

***

 

 

 12 HOURS EARLIER:

 

“They gone ahead and separated.” Len squints. He rocks back on his heels and gestures toward two divergent paths, his grin triumphant as he glances up. “Here and here, y’all see?”

Joe crouches down on one knee; personally he can’t track, it looks like scrabbled up leaves, mixed with dirt and raccoon shit to him. It’s late afternoon and they’ve been hunting this fucker for hours – seeking justice for Lou, god rest his soul – either way, Joe can’t make head or tails out of Len’s discovery and a second opinion don’t hurt.  “Bowman? What do you say?” Len scowls, his irritation surges against Joe’s skin. Len turns his head and spits violently, a gob of tobacco red as blood.  Joe bites his lip to keep the grin hidden.  He ain’t a den mother to these pricks – but a competitive spirit is healthy in the boys so long as it doesn’t get out of hand - more than that, Joe’s still trying to find the measure of their newest man.  They found Bowman two months back, crumpled like a discarded rag-doll on the side of the road.  A body rested beside him, some older dude in a white singlet with dog-tags that read as _Sgt. Merle Jerome Dixon_ , and that’s the extent of Joe’s description.  The Sergeant had been knifed in the face a dozen times and Bowman was slick with gore.   That was an execution performed with extreme prejudice one might say - the type of violence that pinged Joe’s interest – Bowman’s state of catatonia when they encircled him wasn’t quite as fascinating though.

Joe was still in mind to kill the stranger for the weapons he held when Len made the mistake of kicking the corpse, and suddenly catatonia was the least of their concerns, nothing livens a party like an enraged redneck with a crossbow. 

Two months on the road with Joe’s crew and he knows the following – one, Bowman’s good in a tight corner, two, he’s another tracker and ain’t that a sore spot for some, and three, he don’t talk often enough to lie, which suits Joe fine.  

Bowman doesn’t bother squabbling around in the dirt with them.  He walks up to their position sullenly, and shrugs.  “Yer man’s gone that way.”

Len snorts.  “Well, thank you for the validation asshole.”

Bowman’s eyes narrow so much it’s a wonder he can see a damn thing.  Joe wipes the sweat from his own brow, glances between the two of them and interrupts.  “T-tch-tch.  Why they separate now?”

“Due east,” Bowman muses.   “There was a herd in that direction not a week ago, maybe he saw something that needed checking, decided to keep the boy away from it?”

“Boy?  Aren’t you hoping,” Len drawls.  “Personally, I’d opt for a tender slice of feminine thigh.” Bowman pushes past them, close enough that he kneecaps Len in the spine _, hard,_ knocking him out of his crouch and onto hands and knees in the dirt. “Sonofabitch!”

“You want the man who killed Lou?  Two, three hours tops,” Bowman calls back, slinging the crossbow over his shoulder.  He looks set to lead them away from the other set of tracks and Joe doesn’t appreciate being so hasty. 

“Hold up now,” Joe drawls.  “Say that _is_ a kid he’s been hauling around the countryside and not some Asian chick with tiny feet, I bet you all the tea in china he’ll come back for him….” Bowman halts a little further down the embankment, the dust kicked up around his boots, his entire frame turned away.  Joe grins, merrily mad.  “Let’s go find the little ‘un, huh?”

“Claim,” Len says, sotto voce.

It’s against the rules – sub-clause three point zero to be exact – you can’t claim in advance, not until the prize is spotted, but it sure indicates a wish to be there first.  Joe hesitates as his men file past, listening to their casual insults, their grumbles, and watches Bowman’s back.  “You comin’?  Or do you want to go after our killer?”  He swats at a buzzard, low and black, its’ shape misshapen as an over-bloated corpse, before he adds gruffly.  “We can go on, you and I, leave the boy to the tender mercies of my kin and skin that man alive.”  Len’s already cutting across the field in the opposite direction, leading the charge to a fresh piece of ass; Joe doesn’t doubt he’ll find the little one, the man’s one part blood-hound and one part pig. Benign, Joe smiles.

Bowman turns, his expression inscrutable. “Why split up now,” he growls.

“Alrighty, then.”  The horizon’s suspiciously quiet, picturesque as a postcard. It’s a lie, Joe thinks viciously, that promise of peace the biggest deception of all.

 

***

 

 

TUESDAY

6:42 AM

 

Rick’s never needed to carry a headstone; he knows the names and dates of everyone he lost.  But not Carl, he chants, not ever Carl.

The foliage whips at his face, his feet eat up the dirt in long strides.  They’ve been moving at a steady jog for half an hour, not fast enough to draw undue attention or run headlong into a bind, but quick enough to cut the time-frame to Carl’s last position.  Brenton gasps behind him, breathing ragged with the exertion.

Rick could match his list of names to Brenton’s bat, if they’d met two years ago they might have exchanged pleasantries, shared their stories around the muted glow of a campfire.  Rick remembers waking up from a coma utterly alone, no one to explain the rules or what had happened, the headlong flight from a hospital bed to home, terror driving him onward like a whip.  The first twenty-four hours, Rick muses - even after everything that’s happened and been done to him - were still the most horrifying.

After Glenn saved his life in Atlanta, Rick never expected to find his wife and child so quick , the little group huddled on a hilltop quarry were still reeling from their own attack – supplies that were in short demand, food, water, weapons – all of it stolen by two hicks in the middle of the night. Rick remembers Carl’s shout, how Lori’s expression flitted from shock to disbelief, the hard flex of her muscles as she threw her arms around Rick’s neck, and beyond them stood Shane, one eye swollen shut from where he’d been cold-cocked in the raid, grinning at Rick slow and sure.

Rick has a roll-call that can match Brenton’s bat: Morales and his wife Miranda, their little girl, Eliza; Amy, Ed Peletier, Jim, Jacqui, all gone in the first year.

T-Dog one day after they left the CDC behind, his forearm slashed open and no one to staunch the blood.  The Walkers caught his scent and tore him to shreds on Highway I-30, the group helpless to his screams, trapped in a traffic snarl with their first herd ambling by; Sophia next, then Dale, Carol on the night when the farm was over-run; Shane; Lori; Andrea; Hershel; Beth; and the few who were left alive were scattered after the Governor’s attack.

Not Carl, Rick chants internally, and breaks free from the forest into an open clearing, blue skies overhead, the grass bleached yellow from the sun, portent with the promise of peace, of reuniting with his son. A railway track cuts across the land like a drawn-out scar, Rick scrambles up the embankment and down the other side – a sign that reads _Those who arrive survive_ \- barely merits a second glance.

Are there a lot of you? Brenton had asked, hopeful, Rick thinks the names are too numerous to inscribe on a baseball bat.

There’s Rick – and there’s Rick’s son. Anyone who gets between them will leave this world at volume, screaming every step of the way.

 

***

 

11 HOURS EARLIER:

 

Joe’s boys are dirty scrapers, the lot of them, and Bowman’s the same breed.  They were attacked by another party a week ago and while his boys dispatched the threat, Joe had the opportunity to watch Bowman in action, seen the archer react dispassionately, moving from crossbow to knife, fluid as water.  He’s made of the same ilk as the rest of Joe’s men but with a minor hiccup or two - near as Joe can tell, Bowman doesn’t dally over his kills, doesn’t draw it out or make his victim hurt, he kills with minimal fuss; he hasn’t cottoned on to the term ‘claim’ yet either, half-assed about the notion, disdainful – enough nights sleeping on the hard ground will cure him of that thought – and Joe merely sees this as the ‘settling’ in period. It’s apparent he’s not used to large groups – living like a hillbilly and raiding through people’s camps with that Sergeant Dixon friend of his – but Joe’s a patient fella, he’s kind enough to explain the rules of co-habitation to Bowman and if the lesson don’t stick, he’ll beat it into him.  Moreover, it soon becomes apparent they may have underestimated the man. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to assume a hunter is a tracker, part and parcel of the livelihood, but it becomes obvious Bowman’s better at it than Len.  When he decides to follow the tracks left behind by the boy, Bowman fixes his entire attention on it, hawk-eyed and silent, he overtakes the other men easily.  They’re gonna find that little one and tear his hole bloody, Joe muses. Mayhap, they’re gonna find Lou’s killer too.

 

 

 

Carl counts six, moving in arrowhead formation, fanned out and well armed - there’s no women present, something Carl notes ominously - the face of his watch reads as 7:15 pm, the smaller letters beside it spell _mon_. His dad should have returned by now – shoulda, woulda, coulda – and Carl’s mouth has gone dry. It’s trickster light, shadows spill over the land; paint the scenery into a never-world of dusk and half imagined movement; fool’s light, his mom used to call it. 

He inches away from the edge, finger on the safety of his weapon. 

Carl’s safe from Walkers, high in the treetops in some bird-watcher’s nest, lying belly down on a platform of nailed boards.  The construction is rickety, exposure having gotten the better of the timber, but it puts him out of hands reach of the biters – ironically, from this distance, it also puts him within eye-line of the approaching party. Carl figures he has seconds before they spot him.  He scoots to the opposite side, putting the trunk of the tree between them, wriggling backward until his legs dangle off the platform.  It’s a sharp drop, soft dirt directly beneath with no roots to mar the landing.  Carl takes a breath, dangles by his fingertips for a suspended moment then releases, knees buckling with the impact, his palm slapping hard against the earth. The hat tumbles over his eyes, hindering his vision as he strains to listen.

Nothing.   Truth is, he can’t hear over his own heart-rate.

There’s a stream nearby, Carl and his dad stumbled across it yesterday, filled up their water-bottles and washed the blood from their clothing, it’s ten, fifteen minutes away by foot and it’s the only thing Carl can think of to hide his tracks. In the distance a bout of laughter rings out, a wolf-whistle pierces the air; their words start to become distinguishable. 

Carl takes one step, two, keeping in alignment with the oak tree, his gun drawn and held steady against his thigh, on the third step, Carl spins on his heel, ready to bolt, and face-plants directly into someone else’s chest.

 

 

 

 

“Where’d he go anyway?”

Joe shifts the blade of straw from one side of his mouth to the other; he slants a glance at Len and shrugs, nonchalant.  “Said he had to take a piss.”

“Well, he pees like a girl.  What’s he doing, powdering his damn face?”

Joe’s in mind to respond when there’s a holler, high-pitched and startled; the sharp explosion of a gun fired rolls across the landscape like a thunder-crack. In the distance, birds take to the air in startled flight.  They turn as one unit, crouched in reaction.

Len’s face turns ashen. “No way.”

When they finally catch up, it turns out it really _is_ a kid and not some fine-boned lass like Joe was hoping.  The boy isn’t pulling his punches, either, squirming on his back like a snake - there’s a gun knocked out of reach, a spent cartridge ground into the dirt - and the boy’s making a sound, panicked and desperate as he struggles. No cussing though, so Joe figures his momma raised him right.  Bowman has one knee planted in the pit of his stomach, keeping the boy pinned, and when he looks up and catches sight of Joe and the others fast approaching, his expression turns _livid._    “Claimed,” Bowman snarls, savage as a dog.

“Goddamn it!” Len shouts.

 

 


	2. Stick to the water - run for the track

Joe scratches at the stubble on his face, bemused, as the little one lands a blow directly into Bowman’s kidney, the resulting _oomph_ audible. 

Annoyed, Bowman wraps one hand around the boys’ throat, thumb and forefinger stretched wide. 

He doesn’t squeeze the sides of the neck or bruise the kid overtly – Bowman doesn’t apply a traditional choke-hold - he just applies weight, uses the webbing between his fingers to constrict the trachea, until the boy isn’t punching but scrabbling desperately to clear his own airway; not a mark on him.   “Quit it,” Bowman says, offhandedly.

“This is bullshit!   I had dibs, man, I claimed!  I saw those tracks first – you know I was going to find this kid, Joe, you know it!”  Len starts forward by a step, only to draw short, beady eyes fixed on Bowman as the archer curls his free hand around a buck-knife.  

Under him, the kid sags, gasping. 

Bowman releases the pressure on the boy’s windpipe and pays him no further mind; instead, what passes as a smile crosses his face, a showing of teeth without any kinship to humour.  “You were the one so keen to teach: ‘the rules of the hunt don’t apply out here’, _boyo,_ or did you forget?” He spits the words out, tone clipped, hard.

Len looks toward Joe, shifting his feet as he tries to wheedle.  “Then it’s like before with the cotton-tail?  Heads or tails but we share, one warm hole is the same as another.”

“I ain’t sharing _nuthin’_ with you!”

“Let go,” the kid rasps out. 

His chest is heaving like a bellows, sweaty hair fallen into his eyes, jeans caked with dirt.  His face is pale and shocky in the dim light; he’s bitten his lip bloody.  He’s good looking, Joe notes detachedly, a smattering of freckles dust his nose and cheeks; his eyes are pale denim.  Joe had a husky once, a mean bitch who nipped without warning and that dog had the exact same eye colouring, a washed out blue.  The boy has been cared for - as well as could be hoped, considering the life expectancy of folks nowadays - lanky but developing.  His belly doesn’t protrude like a pregnant woman, there’s lean muscle mass found on his bones, he’s growing in a place where most things have withered and died.

“C’mon now,“ Len presses.  “We knock out his front teeth so he don’t bite when we fuck his mouth, it’s all the same.  You want to hurt the man who hurt Lou - then _this_ is the way to go about it, Joe, we share.  Dumbass here can have the tail.”

The knife is cleared from Bowman’s sheath before Len stops speaking, angled so the serrated teeth catch the falling light. He stands, jerking the kid upright by the collar, his tone buttery soft.  Somehow, Joe preferred it when Bowman was yelling. “Going back on your own rules, hoss?”

“No,” Joe decides slowly, and ignores the way Len throws both hands up in the air in a fit of pique.  “You caught the kid fair and square. I don’t need to divide a claim when everyone present knows the rules accountable…ain’t that right, Len?” When the silence stretches out, one second dragging into another, the tension torque-tight, Joe jerks his head in the other man’s direction.  “I said ain’t that – “

“Yeah,” Len interrupts.  “Yeah, that’s right.” 

His eyes are fixed on the kid, he looks as wanton as a chocoholic in a truffle shop, ready to smear his fingertips on the showcase display.

The kid visibly flinches, twisting about. Some of the gruff volume returns to Bowman’s voice.  “Punch me again, I’ll shake you til yer head pops off.”

His men disperse, tired of the drama now that it’s clear they’re not getting some; Joe leans down stiffly, his back complaining as its apt to do, and dusts off a ten-gallon Deputy’s hat that’s lying under the oak-tree, worn-in, the felt still clinging to its original shape. Bowman snatches the discarded weapon up, thumbing the safety and checking the chamber once before he tucks it down the back of his pants. 

“It was the boy who took a pot-shot?” Joe assesses, turning the hat over in his hands.  Sherriff’s son, he thinks, chagrined, what were the odds?

And just like that the irritation’s back, honest and real.  Bowman snaps: “Stupidest little - ”

“Yep.”  Joe drops the felt hat onto the crown of the boy’s head.  He tips it to a jaunty angle, runs his thumb over a baby-soft cheek, smearing dirt, just to see the boy jerk his head in reaction. “But aren’t we all, at that age?”

Bowman shoves the boy, hard enough to stumble him out of Joe’s reach.  “’S the truth.”

Joe flicks his attention toward the old oak with its raised platform, the thick line of trees and underbrush where nature’s forcing its way back in, toward the open field where the kid must have spotted them after Bowman had broken from the group. They can’t see the railway line from this distance; there’s a series of hills that roll in gentle swells and dips, like cresting waves of yellow and green.  Around Joe, his boys intermingle, snarling at each other, pissing on their territory. Bowman and his prize cut further away.

He preferred cats over dogs, always had, Joe once had a marmalade feline at the same time he had his husky, and the contrast between solitary aloof and bounding enthusiasm was stark.  Outsized, outgunned, that cat was cool as a cucumber. Those two breeds don’t mix well but they can cohabitate, they can learn to be in the same room, they can even curl tight into one another’s warmth when need demanded.   

It’s a good spot, Joe decides, for an ambush.

“You said you don’t want to share and I’m telling you, you don’t _need_ to; but dragging around a body that doesn’t want to be with us is an exhausting enterprise.   Have fun, use him, cut a hole in his belly and fuck those warm intestines for all I care, sweet as apple pie.   But when his Pa finds him staked to the ground and _dead_ , you make sure the boy’s last minutes tell their own horrid tale.”  Bowman doesn’t turn around, so Joe never has the satisfaction of seeing the look that passes through the kid’s eyes.  “And that _is_ an order.  Just between you and I, son; you best be clear about it.”

 

 

 

TUESDAY:

7:02 am

 

“Rick!  Rick, listen man, you need to wait up!  I said stop!”  Sweat trickles down his neck in a feather-light caress.  Rick wheels about, his face flat with anger, and whatever Brenton sees is enough to make him throw up both hands in supplication. “Look!”  Brenton points to the left, finger wavering, then promptly keels over, bracing both palms against his thighs as he sucks in air. His face is chalk white, beaded with sweat, he’s been struggling to breathe from the moment Rick found him, asthmatic, anaemic or just plain exhausted.  “You have missile guided focus, man,” Brenton complains, and spits once, rubbing at the back of his neck.

They’re standing in a hollow. 

The earth’s soft with moisture, the grass healthier, grown longer with the collected run-off.  In this little dip, the field is more green than yellow. Rick follows the invisible line of Brenton’s finger, eyes narrowed, and blinks rapidly.  

He’s not a tracker, but in an open field with dew glinting from the tips of the grass, making everything shiny and new, it’s now hard to miss.  There’s a snail-trail three or four yards away, angled at a forty-five degree, coming direct from the railway line.  The grass lies flattened in the hollow where someone - more than someone - trampled it, six distinct lines moving toward Carl’s last position, and a seventh, that veers to the left and follows the dip.   

“No,” Rick says, slow with dawning horror. “Oh, please, no.”

Brenton looks concerned.  “Is it the biter’s from last night?”

Rick’s mind is ticking through multiple scenarios, assessing the tactical situation as calmly as he can when his son is at threat. Walker’s is the best option - some off-shoot branch that stumbled away from the main herd last night - Carl’s high enough to be safe so long as he stays still and if they sprinted over this hill and ran flat-out, Rick could be with him soon enough, pick those biters off one by one. Every bone, muscle, fibre in Rick’s body is vibrating with the need to run; but something else locks him in place; because if it is Walker’s _then Carl is safe enough._

His heart is beating a rapid tattoo – and in this state of heightened agitation Rick’s mind is clear – sharp as a two-sided blade. Six steady lines moved toward his son and a seventh broke away to the left, cutting into the tree-line where the forest began to reclaim its old growth.  Scenario two ends in an entirely different manner: scenario two says it isn’t Walkers following his son but people, and when Rick sprints over that hilltop into plain view, keen to reclaim Carl quick as possible, then it ends with a bullet to his temple.

Rick’s hand curls around the butt of his weapon, the grip aligned with the calluses on his palm.  For the second time in as many minutes, Brenton edges away, uncertain in the other man’s presence.  Wordless, Rick picks up the pace again, half doubled over in a sprint, eyes fixed to the ground as he follows the solitary line that veers left.

 

 

 

 

 

SEVEN HOURS EARLIER

 

_Few basic rules,_ Carl’s dad had insisted, his face was serious (his expression was always grim back then - this was when Carl’s mom was alive - when they were in a group moving on the road, but before they discovered the prison). _You tell them your name, you say it, and you **keep** on saying it.   You make yourself real to them, you hear me?_

_Cut a hole in his belly..._  Carl hears over the top of his father’s voice; it’s a friendlier tone than his dad’s, both jovial and evil-sinister.

_You ingratiate yourself as much as you can, Carl, you make yourself **useful.** Don’t give them an excuse. _ And when Carl went to protest, indignant on his own behalf, his dad had shushed him.  _Just for a little bit._

_Stake that dead body to the ground so his Pa finds it..._

_How long’s a little while?_  Carl had asked. They were sitting on a log, hands dangling between their knees, it was during that time-span when his dad rarely made eye contact with anyone, let alone mom, his shoulders were always hunched, belligerent and waiting for another blow.  Instead of looking at Carl, he was staring at the horizon, watching for zombies, waiting for the group to turn on him like Shane had.   He was hyper-vigilant in the aftermath of the farm and Carl found ways to make himself small and quiet, to curl into his father’s side until his dad could breathe easy again, until his muscles unlocked, one at a time.  _Til I find you…you stay alive til I find you._

“I was eleven,” Carl ventures finally. He’s sore.  He feels like he was sat on by an elephant, and that might not be a fair description to the hunter, but Carl’s feeling less than charitable.   “When everything went down, I mean, I was only eleven.  I think…I’m fourteen now.”

“Save it, kid.”

“Carl,” he corrects, automatically. “My name is Carl, Rick Grimes is my dad.” 

He misses a lot of things, his mom, computer games, his old bedroom.  He misses three square meals a day and that childhood certainty he was perfectly entitled, that his parents would bend the world backwards to make things right.

Carl licks his bottom lip, tastes the dried up blood, from where it was split open in the struggle. 

He misses Sunday afternoons with Shane, watching B-grade movies, the two of them heckling the dialogue, popcorn littering the couch between them. If it were a thriller, then Carl might say something dramatic like this - _my dad is going to kill every last one of you_ \- but between ages eleven to fourteen Carl grew up, painfully, and way too fast.  “Yours?”

The man sitting opposite doesn’t look safe, half of his face is obscured by dark hair, the crossbow over his shoulder bristles with arrows, his buck knife is long as Carl’s forearm; his mouth quirks in response, as if amused by the formality of exchanging names.  “Daryl.”

Carl nods, and says softly.  “Hey.”  He’s shaking still, Carl would like to say it’s the cold, but Joe’s voice is becoming louder in his imagination, overtaking the rules his dad laid out, making it hard to concentrate and stay calm.  “I won’t take from your supplies, promise, but there’s a stream not ten minutes away, can I get some water, boil it?”

“Kid – “

“ _Carl_ ,” he corrects, stubbornly.

“Kid _,”_ Daryl emphasizes.  His eyes glitter dangerously.  “Do you have a manual stuffed up your shirt?  You want to _ingratiate_ yourself to these men, then you best bend over and pretend to like it.”

“Same as you did?” Carl snaps, the rulebook flung out the window. 

He bites his tongue, defiant, because he can’t snatch the words back, and Carl can’t help the way his eyes widen in sheer panic.  He’s smart-mouthed his mom and dad, his dad especially. Shane, Carol on one occasion, but never exactly on these terms. Daryl, oddly, drops his chin.  It takes Carl one heart-stopping moment to realise he’s grinning, a flash of white teeth near hidden in the dark, before the expression’s gone, wiped clean, as if were never present to begin with.

“Here’s hoping it wasn’t an apple tree you tumbled out of,” Daryl mumbles.

“What do you mean?”

“Figure it out yer own damn self.”

They stare at one another.  Carl’s the first to look away, shuddering in the dark as Joe’s voice loops in his head, stuck on endless repeat.

He eyes the terrain - the rocks, the sticks; he wonders idly how much muscle would be needed to prime an arrow in a crossbow and pull the trigger - Daryl doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to start the raping portion of the night and Carl already knows what fate has in store for him. The knowledge has left him swinging precariously, caught between a sense of unreality and gut-wrenching terror.  “What about my dad?” Carl asks eventually. “What will Joe do?”

“Kid – “

“ _Carl.”_

“Jesus, _whatever_!” Daryl explodes.  “You were there, same as me, if you can’t figure out what Joe wants to do to your pop, then get your damn hearing checked.”

“It’s my dad,” Carl whispers, near soundless, he plucks at a loose thread hanging from his cuff, his heart pounding. “It’s my dad.”

Daryl cuts his gaze away. 

“Yeah, well, everybody’s somebody.”

The silence is uncomfortable.  Daryl doesn’t appear any more at ease than Carl is, sitting cross-legged on the ground as Len claims the perch, as the other men spread out around them, facing the clearing with weapons near at hand. Daryl sways, shooting a narrow-eyed look at Carl, acting pissed.  “’Sides,” he grates out.  “You ought to be more concerned with your own self.”   

Carl lets the loose thread drop from his fingertips. He lifts his head high enough to stare at Daryl from under the brim of his hat.  Rick called it his gunslinger pose, while Maggie, teasingly, called it Carl’s ‘blue steel’ look – though Carl never understood the reference himself - Daryl simply curses, imaginatively, and uncoils enough to stand on his feet, dragging Carl with him.

“Bowman, where you headed?” Joe’s frowning, standing by his bedroll, a sawn-off shotgun in one hand.

“You want it done, fine, I ain’t giving you a show.”

“Having trouble?”  Len singsongs.  He peers over the side of the perch, eyes mean, one arm dangling loose as he jerks his fist.  “Can’t get it up, princess?”

“No one in their right mind can be excited with you flapping about.”

“Bowman,” Joe intervenes, the voice of rationality. He looks at Daryl patiently, as if waiting to see how things will play out.  “You’re not back in half an hour, we’ll come a knockin’ – I’d hate to teach you about punctuality.”

Len blows a kiss from up above.  “Track you down myself, mano-o-mano. We’ll huff and we’ll puff – “

Daryl flips him off, moving into the darkness with a sure step.  Carl, with admirable restraint, manages to wait until they’re out of earshot before he looks at Daryl disbelievingly.  “You actually _like_ them?”

“Don’t need to like ‘em.  They’re what I’ve got.”

“You can help my dad,” Carl blurts out, with zero finesse, almost stumbling over a branch in the dark.  “Even the odds.”

“Straight to negotiation, too,” Daryl drawls, off-hand. He doesn’t pause to consider it, head cocked to one side as he listens to the sound of running water, and beneath that, the low subterranean growl of biters shifting in the dark. “You’re sprinting through the manual, kid – “

“Carl.”

“ – but I’m not casting my lot in with you.”

Carl looks at him sidelong in the dark, his fists curling.  The fear buried in his ribcage turns over, mutates into rage now that there’s only the two of them.   All of the muscles, from fingers to toes torque, screw up tight. Carl had shot a boy, no older than himself, in the face once, because he felt threatened. He still remembers the tiredness in his dad’s voice - _Son, you need to learn how to read a situation -_ a helpless disappointment that made Carl want to yell. 

“Your dad’s running late.  Meant to be back with you hours ago, ain’t that right?” Daryl continues.  “You might not want to hear it, but with a herd stumbling about these parts, there’s a good reason why.  Now quit yapping.”

It’s designed to scare him – or maybe Daryl sees it as a harsh truth – but it’s one Carl’s lived with for four years now, felt deep in his bones every time he had to wait, every time his father left the prison or fought Walkers or invaded the Governor’s camp to rescue Maggie and Glenn. It’s not a new fear, worn in and comfortable.   Carl chooses to live with it the same way he always has - his dad, Maggie, Glenn, the others - they’re alive until Carl sees a body, prone or stumbling.   “You don’t know him.  He’s not dead.”  Daryl’s look is assessing, he holds the gaze a beat longer than Carl is comfortable with, then ducks under a low hanging branch.

For the first time since Carl ran head-long into his chest under the oak-tree, Daryl puts deliberate space between them. 

The crossbow is fired, there’s a garble followed by a sharp splash, and Carl can’t see what colour the water runs when he follows the man out into the stream. 

The body bobs in the water, arms akimbo.  Carl catches a glimpse of a tattered dress, a cross-bolt through her ear like an old Looney Tunes cartoon, and then drops his gaze to the empty bottle dangling in his hand.  “You won’t kill me,” Carl declares, and tries to make his voice sound confident, as adult as he can.  “I know you won’t.”

Daryl pulls the arrow loose; it pops free with a sucking sound, with brain matter clinging to the tip.  Daryl checks the shaft for structural damage, reloads it, and gestures upstream.  “This is Madson’s creek.  You follow the embankment til you hit the railway bridge, turn left, follow the tracks all the way to Terminus.  That’s where your people will be at, if they’re alive.  Now get.”

There’s a ringing in Carl’s ears, his breath leaves him in one tight shudder, clouding the night air.  “Alone?”  His own voice doesn’t sound adult to him, it sounds small. 

The dress floats in the current, the water runs like black ink.

“Six men have been hunting you like bloodhounds for two days – you think Len will let up _now_ \- unless someone kills him?” Daryl shrugs. “Tonight’s a good enough reason, I reckon.  So, stick to the water, run for the track.  They won’t follow.”

Carl shakes his head, helpless, trying to navigate a turn that’s too sudden. 

Daryl swipes the felt hat from his head, tucks it under one armpit, and returns Carl’s weapon to him.  “ _Go_.”

Carl stumbles back a step, three more, moving until the distance between them is half a room’s length, water runs over his calf, soaks through his boots.  He levels the weapon at Daryl without even thinking about it, arm steady.  “No.  You’re gonna help me find my dad.”

Daryl snorts.  He resettles the crossbow over one shoulder and holds up a small box, rattling the contents until the implication sinks into Carl’s mind.  He looks lean in the moonlight, sharp as a predator, half-amused.   “Think the idea of your dad is starting to worry me."  He tosses the bullets onto the bank, and by the time Carl scrambles, loads the weapon the way Shane and Rick taught him to, the other man’s gone, slipped back into the night.

The record changes tune, no longer Joe’s voice taunting in the back of Carl’s skull - _stay alive_ , his dad insists, _stay alive til **I** find **you**_ – and beside that a gruffer voice -  _stick to the water, run for the track_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basing Carl's age on the actor - rather than the comic-books - but you can yell at me if you want.


End file.
